Cage the Vessel, Never the Soul - Comments

I feel like all I ever do is repeat myself on your stories. About how they’re all so perfectly spot-on with emotion and detail and characters and flow. I could sit here and pick out every line that I loved the most in this oneshot, but it would end up being a copy-and-paste of the entire thing. -sigh- I wanna know your secret to being amazing. You nearly had me crying by the end of the oneshot simply because it was so packed full of emotion and detail. Also, I wanna mention the title. The title was just completely perfect and fit so well with the oneshot. Normally I'm not a fan of longer titles, but this one was just beautiful. A few of my favorite parts, just for the hell of it:

- They’re an odd pair, Gabe and William, Gabe with his too-bright smile and casual cynicism and William with his careful blankness and inner core of steel. Somehow, though, they seem to just fit, their jagged edges lining up in the middle to join them together.

-Gabe’s been with William since the day he arrived and he’ll be there until the day he leaves, in a slim black box on the back of a broken dream.

-(Gabe kind of thinks that’s bullshit, but then he would.)
And then you do a sort of call-and-answer type of thing with:
- William doesn’t agree, but then he wouldn’t.
I think of it as call-and-answer because that’s what it would be called in musical terms, but I have no idea what to call it in this other than just beautiful.

MORE (I swear I’m almost done):

-(Gabe has been convicted of robbery and grievous bodily harm twice each; he shouldn’t be capable of warm, fuzzy feelings in the chasm in his chest.)

-His eyes are sad, though, little brown droplets of abject misery, and it makes Gabe sad, too.

And then the last line…just perfect. Beautiful, amazing job as always.

<3 Haven

wow, this was just amazing. it was so well written and flowed so well that it completely had my undivided attention the whole way through.
I admit I was kind of worried about how this prompt would turn out - it could have been a very cliched type of story - but you made it completely your own and I thought that was great.
I came to the end of this story and was so desperate for more, which is always a good sign.
Thank you so much for entering my contest. good luck. (can you put a link to the contest in your description please (: )

So I was just roaming around the forums looking at interesting posts/people/stories, and I stumbled upon this story. I really did enjoy this - I haven't seen a lot of prison stories on here, even if there may be quite a few.

I'm not going to go into a detailed comment this time, but I thought I'd at least let you know I liked this piece & not be a silent reader. Lovely job with this :')

When I saw this in the Pimping thread, I instantly clicked on it; not only because it was written by you (although that helped) but because it sounded so interesting. I'm a sucker for well-written prison stories and Gabilliam so I was drawn to it right off of the bat. I was really interested in the fact that you chose William to be the one who is a little off his rocker; it's always nice to see him as a more dominant character in stories.

That first sentence was just so damn creepy in some way. It is true that everyone in prison is insane but there's always that one person who is just completely and utterly gone and I got that image right off of the bat (which is something I say a lot. xD)

Gabe is one of them, Gabriel Saporta, but he’s nearly as crazy as William they’re an odd pair, Gabe and William... I love how you use run-ons in your writing but here, I felt like from they're an odd pair onward should have been a separate sentence. That's just my opinion though. :)

(Gabe kind of thinks that’s bullshit, but then he would.) I really wish that we could still use emoticons in our comments because I know I've told you a dozen times how much I love your use of brackets and I feel like an emoticon would do a better job. Nonetheless, I'll just say once again that I absolutely love it. It's such a unique trademark of your writing and I just love it.

William doesn’t agree, but then he wouldn’t.) I love how this line was a direct contrast with the line about Gabe; it further shows that him and William are really two pieces of the same puzzle, that they are each other's other side. It was just such a clever way to put that in there.

(Gabe has been convicted of robbery and grievous bodily harm twice each; he shouldn’t be capable of warm, fuzzy feelings in the chasm in his chest.) This line made me laugh really, really hard for some reason; most likely how you worded his feelings. They weren't just good feelings, they were warm and fuzzy. It just seemed like such a ridiculous contrast, which I believe is what you were going for. xD

I did enjoy this piece, although I felt that there could have been a bit more detail with it overall. It's really hard to explain, but it seemed like a small series of vignettes rather than a oneshot, if that makes sense. If that's what you're going for, disregard what I just said. Otherwise, I think that the ending just came up a little bit too abrupt; I didn't feel much closure, if that makes sense. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this, as usual; your writing is great and I loved the personality you created for William as this tortured man that scares the hell out of everyone. Loved it. <3